Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I thank Senator Rounds, and I appreciate all my colleagues coming down to the floor. A lot of my colleagues are from the class of 2014. Mr. President, there has been a theme in this colloquy. We have been talking about economic growth and about this challenge of what I have been referring to as a lost decade of economic growth. When talking about tax reform, we have to go back through the history and see what is meant by a lost decade. I have been coming down to the floor for a couple of years now with this chart. This chart says a lot. This chart looks at the history of the United States and where we have been with regard to economic growth. It is bipartisan--Democratic and Republican administrations-- showing decade after decade, starting with Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and what this chart states is that right now, something is wrong. When we talk about GDP growth, GDP growth is a proxy for the health of the economy. Unfortunately, we have had a sick economy. GDP growth is a proxy for the American dream, and unfortunately I think that a lot of people over the last 10 years started to worry about whether it was something that can be obtained. Let's look at the chart. Every administration, Democratic or Republican, shows strong levels of growth. My colleagues were talking about at least 3 percent or higher since the Great Depression.…”